


Picture this............. Glitter!!

by prophet_of_troy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Beware The Glitter, Crack, Facebook: Hermione's Nook, Glitter, Hermione's Nook's Cards Against Muggles Crack Fest, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Sort Of, glitter!!, no seriously, things get out of hand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23403658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prophet_of_troy/pseuds/prophet_of_troy
Summary: All Gilderoy Lockhart wants to do is brighten things up a bit, but he takes extreme measures when a certain professor doesn't understand his genius.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 14
Collections: Cards Against Muggles Crack Fest





	Picture this............. Glitter!!

**Picture this………… Glitter!**  
  
Gilderoy didn’t see what the big deal was. It was _just_ glitter, after all. Things were always so serious, so dreary, surely he wasn’t the only one that thought things could use a little sprucing up? Not that old McGonagall had seen his side of things when he tried to explain to her exactly what he’d been doing with that suit of armour. Obviously the woman wasn’t very perceptive or it would have been obvious. She didn’t like him saying _that_ either.

“It’s glitter,” he huffed at her, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring a bit at being interrupted in his mission. “When someone passes, the armour will spit it at the person and-”

At that moment a Hufflepuff walked by and Gilderoy held his breath for the suit of armour to explain itself without him having to, for her to see his point and rejoice in his efforts to liven the castle, but nothing happened. He sighed and pouted at the floor.

“Twenty points from Ravenclaw,” she told him. 

“Twenty?! It’s just glitter!”

“And a piece of history that’s been part of this castle longer than most of the wizarding world has been in existence! I find you near them again, Mr Lockhart, and it will be a detention. Now excuse me. I do believe it’s been a whole week since I’ve seen that mischievous look on Mr Black’s face, and I find it my civic duty to investigate.”

Gilderoy watched her go and looked back at the suit of armour to wage the consequences. Wasn’t style worth it? Wasn’t aesthetic worth the trouble one must get in to break free of such an oppressive system that glitter was met with points taken away? If he could convince the student body the merits of such a thing, maybe they could rig all of the suits.

Or even just one teacher….. 

He looked back at Professor McGonagall, who was now scolding the Marauders for something, and felt something close to an idea pop up into his head. He approached after she was gone, casual and calm. 

“Evening, gents,” he greeted with as charming a grin as he could muster. 

“No.”

The grin dropped and he frowned at Potter. “What do you mean, ‘no’? All I said was ‘good evening’!”

They were obviously trying to salvage whatever plan their Head of House had torn apart and Potter turned to him with an accusing expression. “You were going to ask for something, and I’m saving you the trouble. The answer’s no.”

He and the other three turned back to each and the huddle they were talking in, effectively shutting him out. He’d quite liked Potter from afar, despite his always haggard appearance. While unlike Lupin’s shabbiness, Potter dressed in very nice robes that always looked like they’d been tossed onto his floor and kicked and stepped on before he put them on. Gilderoy put his hands on his hips and waited, tapping his foot until they noticed him again. 

After a few moments with no success, he said, “Well, fine! Here I thought we could help each other out, but I can see when I’m not wanted.”

“What could you possibly have that we could need or want?” Pettigrew asked him with some exasperation. His appearance was neither here nor there, which Gilderoy thought was a crime within itself. Everything about him was painfully average. 

Gilderoy turned away slightly, playing hard to get and appraising his nail beds. “You had your chance.”

“You’re right,” Black told him, “so we’ll be going.”

Sirius Black. He, like Gilderoy, seemed to understand the importance of clothing and the merits of the right accessory. He dressed in expensive robes, and high end muggle clothing in their more recent years, and had luscious hair that Gilderoy despised- rivalling his own for quality. Everything about him made Gilderoy seethe with jealousy. 

“I have plans to prank a professor,” he blurted, panicking when they really turned to leave. He smoothed back his hair and stood taller when they turned back. “Would that be something you’d be interested in being involved in?”

Black and Potter were obviously intrigued, starting to step towards him again when Lupin stopped them. He looked at Gilderoy suspiciously. “Which professor?”

Lupin was nice and he had the reputation for being so; but his robes were always a season past their prime, his shoes were scuffed and laced wrong, and he wore sweater vests. What person in their right mind, never mind at their age, wore  _ sweater vests _ ?! Gilderoy jeered at him. 

“McGonagall.”

The four of them deflated and Potter burst out, angry that he’d gotten his hopes up. “Oh, I knew you were full of it, Lockhart. No one pranks McGonagall and gets away with their lives. Everyone knows that.”

Gilderoy’s smile from before came back and he looked down at his nails again. “Imagine being the first.”

There was a pause and, sighing and resigned to his fate, Lupin asked, “What did you have in mind?”

Gilderoy’s eyes brightened. “Picture this……. glitter.”

They didn’t seem any more impressed than she had. In fact, without needing to look at the others, Black said, “No. Absolutely not.”

“Wha- well, don’t you want to know the rest of it?”

“We don’t mess with glitter anymore,” Pettigrew explained flatly. “In  _ any _ capacity. Can’t wash it off so there’s no getting away with it, and punishments get forty-three percent more severe when it’s involved. And it’s  _ McGonagall _ .”

Gilderoy whined a little in the back of his throat. “But, it  _ has _ to be glitter. I’m trying to start a revolution here, boys. I thought you of all people would understand.”

Potter sighed and slung an arm around Gilderoy’s shoulders to veer him away and reason with him. “Look, mate. I’m inches away from getting Evans to go on a date with me. If I get caught in another major prank, much less with her favourite teacher, I’ll never get to her. So, I support your cause from afar, but you understand I can’t afford to distress the future mother of my children.”

“I guess…”

“Good man,” Potter said, clapping his back. “And good luck.”

He’d have to do this on his own.  
  
*  
  
Lunch the following afternoon was his time, sneaking up while he knew she and everyone else would be eating. Now, Gilderoy stood at the door of McGonagall’s office, wand shaking nervously as he looked around the dreary room. He couldn’t help his lip curling in distaste. Honestly. Didn’t anyone appreciate the true magic of a few splashes of colour? Didn’t she know how _not_ in plaid was? She needed this, and she’d thank him.

He cleared his throat.

“ _ Et erit adventicio fulget! _ ”

With the wave of his wand, glitter rained from the ceiling in a descending spiral. He took a moment to watch, eyes wide and a matching smile. His work danced around the room, falling where it was meant and making everything sparkle. He watched it for several minutes, mesmerised. Then he realized the glitter wasn’t slowing down. 

His smile dropped and he tried to reverse it with a spell- fumbling over the words as he did nine times out of ten.

The glitter poured, no longer in a delicate spiral that added the perfect amount of pizzazz. Now it was as though a large hole had been cut in the air and from it, the glitter came like a pressurized faucet. He squeaked at it, frozen and unsure of what to do. But there was nothing  _ to _ do. Watching wasted precious, tacky time, and within minutes it was almost to his calf. Panicked, Gilderoy stumbled towards where it was coming down, tripping and crawling through the mountains of glitter in hopes he could plug it up and stop the downfall. 

“Oh, no! No, no, no, no, no! This isn’t what was supposed to happen. This looks terrible. It’s too much!  _ Finite! _ ” he cried, the bubble of dread growing in his chest. “ _ Finite!” _

Nothing happened. 

Gilderoy looked around at the scene and slowly began to back away. There was nothing to do for it but flee. He thought about the Marauders, how he’d said he wanted to prank McGonagall, and how this scene would be interpreted were he to be caught here. 

“It’s just glitter,” he sobbed to himself, his back against the door. The room was quickly filling up. “It’s just glitter!”

It stopped. 

For a moment the pour ceased, plugging the hole itself without his aide. He perked up just a bit before watching it with fearful eyes as the hole expanded, still stuffed too much with glitter to expel it. Gilderoy could feel his bottom lip quiver and he closed his eyes tight, turning his head from the inevitable. The door behind him opened and that seemed to be it. The hole above, which now almost overtook the entire ceiling, purged and an ocean of gold glitter threw him from McGonagall’s office in a roaring wave that cut off his rather undignified shriek. 

_ “ _ **_FINITE!_ ** ” he heard his saviour call firmly. Then when the current of glitter stopped, “ _ Evanesco! _ ”

This glitter which had carried Gilderoy vanished, leaving a lovely, sparkling path in its wake. He let out a deep sigh of relief, laying on the stone floor with his eyes closed and his limbs stretched out to catch his breath and his pulse. 

“Thank you,” he said finally at the shadow standing over him. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t thank me just yet, Mr Lockhart.”

McGonagall.

Gilderoy jerked into a sitting position to look at her, wincing when he did. He’d never seen her look so angry, so furious, even at the Marauders. Her lips pursed almost in nonexistence, her face red, and he shrunk away at how her fingers fidgeted with her wand. Her robes shimmered gold to her waist, glitter glinting at him from the robes and a bit in her hair and on her cheek. 

“Detention,” her voice trembled with barely concealed rage. “For a week, helping Hagrid muck out the thestral pens.”

Gilderoy fell back onto the floor in a resigned huff. 

“I know.”

Maybe the world just wasn't ready....

**Author's Note:**

> My prompt for this particular fest, the one I chose among three, was Copiously using glitter is the worst thing a Ravenclaw has ever been accused of doing. I almost went with Luna. I wasn't sure and I was telling my mom about it, listing canon Ravenclaws when she asked..... and this happened.


End file.
